


Dance of the Blessed Spirits

by Flames and Fairy Tales (Flames_and_Fairy_Tales)



Category: Lockwood & Co. - Jonathan Stroud
Genre: Case Fic, Gen, Set after The Creeping Shadow, hints of Locklyle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-05
Updated: 2019-02-20
Packaged: 2019-10-05 00:33:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17314721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flames_and_Fairy_Tales/pseuds/Flames%20and%20Fairy%20Tales
Summary: On their first case alone since Lucy came back, Lockwood and Lucy take on a musically inclined Visitor





	1. Chapter 1

I had not been sure what to expect when Holly informed us that the music teacher from Lanfort College for Talented Youngsters would arrive in an hour, but our client certainly defied any expectations. I had been mentally preparing myself for somebody similar to the headmistress of Chelsea Ladies’ college, who had spent the entire time of her interview looking at me like I was a beggar on the street.  Instead of a severe middle-aged lady with greying hair in a tight bun and small spectacles, our client was a beautiful woman in her thirties. She had dark, wavy hair that was held back in a pretty silver hair clip, and wore a soft pink floral dress under a fashionable overcoat.

 

“Thank you for meeting me on such short notice, Mr Lockwood,” She said after shaking Lockwood’s hand and introducing herself as Iris Jefferson.

“It’s not a problem, Mrs Jefferson,” Lockwood assured her. He courteously took her coat and hung it on the coatrack next to George’s jacket. “Shall we go to the sitting room?  You can tell us all about your problem while enjoying a nice cup of tea.” He jerked his head in the direction of the kitchen behind her back. George took the hint and disappeared down the hall. Holly and I joined Lockwood and our client in the sitting room.

 

“These are my associates, Lucy Carlyle and Holly Munro,” Lockwood explained, gesturing at us as he took a seat in his armchair. “Our other colleague, George Cubbins will be along with the tea shortly.”

“All right,” Mrs Jefferson said. She smoothed down the fabric of her dress as she sat down on the couch and daintily folded her hands in her lap. The motion drew my attention to the silver bracelet that gleamed around her right wrist. Like most adults, she didn’t quite seem to know how to conduct herself in our sitting room, and her eyes kept flicking from us to the exotic ghost memorabilia on the walls.

 

Holly dug up a pen and a notepad from the depths of a sideboard drawer while we waited for George, and I settled into the armchair across from Lockwood’s.

“I’m terribly sorry, but is it possible to start without waiting for Mr Cubbins?” Mrs Jefferson asked after a minute had passed in uncomfortable silence. Lockwood hesitated and shared a look with Holly and me. I shrugged at him, not sure it would matter, but Holly decisively shook her head.

“We’d rather wait for George, if you don’t mind. He is our head of research, so it is important that he gets all the information from you directly, Mrs Jefferson,” she explained.

 

For a moment it seemed like Mrs Jefferson wanted to protest. She’d already opened her mouth to say something, but then she deflated a bit, shooting a glance at her bracelet. Only now I realised that it was actually a wristwatch. 

 “You’re right,” she sighed, “of course you are.” Luckily we didn’t have to wait for George long. After a few more uncomfortable minutes, he entered the sitting room with a tray that held our tea set and a plate of glazed buns. When he had finished pouring everybody a cup of tea, he sat down as well. Lockwood leant forward in his chair.

“So, what can we do for you, Mrs Jefferson?”

 

Mrs Jefferson steeled herself. She sat up straighter and squared her shoulders, trying to appear strong.

“I think there is a Visitor in my studio,” she stated, her voice crisp and clear. Then she quickly reached for her cup of tea on the low coffee table. Despite the show of confidence she had put on, the porcelain cup still rattled softly against its saucer until she brought it up to her mouth to take a sip.

“Straight to the point,” George muttered, appreciation showing in his tone. Lockwood just raised an elegant eyebrow.

“What makes you think so, Mrs Jefferson?” I asked. It was rather refreshing to have a client who didn’t beat around the bush.

“I get caught by this bone deep feeling of melancholy at the end of my workday,” our client started after lowering her cup back down to its saucer. “It is impossible to keep the studio warm, despite the heater being on at full force. For the past few days things have been getting moved from where I had left them when I come in in the mornings.”

 

This certainly piqued our interest.

“And you are sure you didn’t misplace things yourself?” Holly asked, looking up from her little notepad.

Mrs Jefferson sent a sharp look in her direction. “Miss Munro, if I was just messy I would not be sitting here,” she asked, and for the first time, a bit of strict teacher shimmered through her meek demeanour. She shook her head, making her hair dance with the movement.

“It is not just papers lying on the other side of the desk, I am talking about music stands being moved across the room and the lid of the grand piano being propped up. Those are not things I would forget I moved myself!”

 

“Of course not, Mrs Jefferson,” Lockwood said in his placating voice. He used the voice on creditors, annoyed police constables and difficult clients alike, and it did the trick on Mrs Jefferson as well. Some of the tightness in her shoulders lessened and she let out a soft sigh.

“Can you tell us how long this has been going on?” Lockwood continued.

“I am not quite sure, to be honest. Things moving around is certainly a recent development, but the strange feeling creeping up on me has been there ever since I started using the studio back in July. I started leaving early to avoid it, but with the days getting shorter as we’re nearing winter, it settles in earlier every day.” She shot another glance at her watch after finishing her sentence.

 

“Do you have somewhere to be?” George asked curiously. He leant forward to reach for a glazed bun, but a stern look from Holly made him reconsider.

“Lunch break ends in half an hour,” Mrs Jefferson said by way of an explanation.

“Does the school not know you are here?” I asked in surprise.

Her cheeks flushed red, but despite her obvious embarrassment she answered.

“No, They don’t,” she said. “Of course I have alerted the board of my suspicions, but they don’t think there is an issue.”

I exchanged a look with Lockwood, who seemed to be just as taken back by the admission as I was.

“Why not? He asked. “I would think having a Visitor on school grounds would pose a real threat to the school’s students?”

 

Mrs Jefferson seemed to deflate. She raised her hand to her head as if to run it through her hair, but lowered it halfway through the motion to fold them in her lap again.

“Not to the _school’s_ students, no,” she said, her voice sounding a little bitter. “The regular school day ends at half-past two, and all students are gone from the premises by three o’clock. They aren’t the ones I am worried about. Since September I have been teaching private violin lessons in the studio, you see. I get two or three students each afternoon, and the last one of them is usually on their way around four, but lessons protract sometimes…”

“Does the board not care about the safety of your private students?” I asked, my eyebrows knitting together in a frown.

“I wouldn’t go as far as to say they don’t care,” Mrs Jefferson said with a sigh. “But they are worried about what might happen to their reputation if it gets out that they allow teenagers who don’t pay the tuition to be taught on school grounds. It took me ages to negotiate for permission to use the studio after hours because of that. Can you imagine what a Visitor on school grounds would do to that reputation?”

“Wouldn’t be very good for it, I imagine,” George agreed.

 

“Is that why you came to us then?” Holly asked. She put down the notepad for a moment to take a sip of her tea.

“I thought it would be more discrete than hiring a larger agency, yes,” Mrs Jefferson confirmed. “My husband remembered your agency from news articles about Combe Carey Hall and the Aickmere department store a while ago, so I know you are capable agents.” She gave a wry smile. “It also helps that you are a lot cheaper than some other agencies. Without the school board supporting me, I can not afford a team from Fittes or Rotwell.”

 

“I hope we can be of service to you, Mrs Jefferson,” Lockwood said. He flashed the bright smile that always seemed to instil confidence in its recipients.

“So do I Mr Lockwood,” Mrs Jefferson replied. 

Now that it was clear that Lockwood had decided we would take the case, George took his turn. He sat up a little straighter, pushed his glasses further up his nose and spoke.

 

“As you are missing your lunch break, I must offer you a glazed bun,” he said, offering her the plate. Holly shot him an annoyed look. She had been trying to get us to tone down the junk food, but if the client took one, so could we. Mrs Jefferson chose a bun, and George triumphantly took one as well before turning his attention back to the case.

 

“Has there been an increase of spiders in the studio?” was his first question. Spiders flock to places with high psychic activity, so agents often used them as an indicator to the location of the source of a haunting. Mrs Jefferson shook her head.

“There are a few near the doors and windows of course, but it’s October, so that’s to be expected. To be quite honest, I haven’t noticed _any_ striking changes over the past few weeks.

“Alright… Have there been Visitors on the grounds in the past? Or do you perhaps know about any incidents that occurred on school grounds? Accidents or crimes of passion, that sort of thing.”

 

Again Mrs Jefferson shook her head. I spaced out at this point. George was good at what he did – his research had saved our lives on multiple occasions before, which he liked to remind us of- but I always had a hard time bringing up the interest in historical facts that seemed to drive him. Holly was still listening attentively, but when I shot a look at Lockwood, he was subtly trying to hide a yawn by bringing his hand up to scratch at his nose. He saw me looking at him and gave me the small, lopsided smile that he reserved for his closest friends. I couldn’t help but smile back at him.

 

Roughly fifteen minutes later, after George had grilled Mrs Jefferson for all the information she could give him, and Lockwood had told her we would stop by the studio the following day, Holly walked our client to the door.

 

That afternoon George left for the National Newspaper Archives and didn’t return until it was time for dinner. He dropped a shockingly thin folder onto the table after we had cleared away the remnants of our meal and proceeded to explain he had barely found anything. The school grounds had not been the scene of any incident that would be likely to leave psychic traces – as the college was located in Kensington, one of the older parts of London – and there were no notable dead people associated with the place either.

 

Based on the available information, or more the lack thereof, we decided that Lockwood and I would handle the case by ourselves. George had put up a short protest, but much to his chagrin, he had to admit that there was no reason to prepare for something like a cluster or strong type two. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has been sitting in my drafts for a while, and I decided to just post the first chapter. I’m also still working on my other fanfictions, but I just wanted to put something out before uni starts again. This is a case fic set after The Creeping Shadow, and I estimate that it will have three chapters. Let me know what you think!


	2. Chapter 2

The next day Lockwood and I walked across the well-kept school grounds of Lanfort College for Talented Youngsters. We were both fully kitted out, carrying iron chains, our belts filled with salt bombs and satchels of salt and iron filings, iron chains wrapped around our shoulders and of course our rapiers. Lockwood was also carrying one of our kitbags filled with extra fillings, and a set of silver seals in varying sizes. In short, we were prepared for a standard case. The only thing missing from my equipment was the skull in the jar. I had decided to leave it at home as we were relatively sure it would be an easy case. 

Our destination for the evening was the studio hidden behind the large main building of the school. It was a small brick thing, and obviously a recent addition judging by the modern design when compared to the baroque style of the main building. The white bricks hadn’t been dulled by London’s exhaust fumes yet, the paint of the window and door frames looked like it had just finished drying yesterday, and even from a distance I could see the shine of the iron charms dangling from the windows. 

“Doesn’t look like a typical Haunt,” I remarked as Lockwood and I reached the door. I could hear faint music coming from inside, melodious and playful, but it sounded surprisingly far off.  
“It doesn’t,” Lockwood agreed, “but we both know how deceiving appearances can be. I’m sure I don’t have to remind you of Guppy’s house.”  
He was right of course. The house of the Ealing Cannibal had been incredibly well kept, but inside we had faced one of the most daunting jobs we’d ever had. Still, this modern building did not give of the feeling of menace I had come to expect from the places I worked in.

A thin rectangular window in the green painted door, allowed us to see into the studio. Mrs Jefferson and a teenage boy holding a reddish brown violin stood behind a black stand at the far end of the room. They were facing us, but both of them were engrossed in whatever was on the stand. Mrs Jefferson was pointing at something with the back of the pencil she was holding, but then Lockwood knocked on the glass pane with a gloved hand, and she looked up. She straightened her back and made a beckoning gesture with her hand, so Lockwood opened the door.  
  
“Mr Lockwood, Miss Carlyle, thank you for coming,” she said as we entered. Lockwood returned the greeting politely, but I only gave a small nod before concentrating and opening my inner ear. There were a lot of sounds in the room of course – The soft tick of the clock on the wall, the squeak of the linoleum as the boy shuffled his feet about 20 feet away, Lockwood quietly speaking with Mrs Jefferson – but psychically everything was silent. 

It was a strange silence, not like the one I had felt in Combe Carey Hall where it had been unnatural and pressing, as if somebody had stuffed my ears with cotton wads, or the empty silence of a place that was simply ghost free, like the one that reigned in the little flat in Tooting I had lived in for a few months. I could feel there was something slumbering under the surface here, as if the building itself was holding its breath, waiting for something to start. 

“I’m afraid we haven’t quite finished Thomas’s lesson,” Mrs Jefferson said as I let go of my concentration.  
“No problem, we arrived early,” Lockwood replied, even though we really hadn’t. He shot me a quick, questioning glance, and I shook my head to let him know I hadn’t heard anything.  
“Please take a seat, we’ll be done soon,” Mrs Jefferson continued. 

I did as Mrs Jefferson said and sat down at one of the chairs. The room was rather large but its contents somehow made it feel both spacious and cluttered. The first half of the space from the door had been taken up by two sections of chairs with swivelling desk arms, probably used when students needed to take notes during their classes. Lockwood sat down in the chair to my right and let his eyes scan our surroundings. If the furrowing of his brow was anything to go by, he was using his talent. 

I took a look around as well. It had been a long time since I last been in a classroom (and even longer since I had been in one as a student instead of as an agent on a case), but I could still easily see that this wasn’t a traditional classroom. The rows of chairs faced two whiteboards mounted on the wall furthest from the door. One was a regular whiteboard; the other one had multiple bars of 5 lines printed on it. In the left corner there was a small desk with a comfortable chair, leaving an open space in front of the whiteboards. A grand piano stood to the right of the open space, a few feet away from a set of two oaken bookcases, filled to the brim with all kinds of leaflets and thin books. Sheet music, I realised. There was a floor-length mirror on the left wall, and it gave the room an even more spacious feel. Right next to it was an inconspicuous door. The posts were lined with iron, and underneath the handle was a heavy-duty lock. I exchanged a look with Lockwood; we’d have to ask Mrs Jefferson for the key later. 

A drawn out tone cutting through the silence shook me out of my reverie. The boy, Thomas I supposed, had put his violin back under his chin and was playing a melody. He was focussed on the sheet music on his stand, but I could see the soft shaking of his hands. Mrs Jefferson had sat down on the piano stool and was listening attentively, occasionally glancing up from the sheet music on her lap to take in Thomas’s posture. 

“Hang on,” she said suddenly and Thomas started, his bow drawing across the strings in a screech. Mrs Jefferson didn’t comment on it, but stood up and walked back to him.  
“You’re playing the piece perfectly,” She assured him, “but I’m missing something. You did so well before, tell me what music is again?”  
“Emotion,” Thomas answered dutifully; as if this was a conversation they’d had multiple times before.  
“Exactly, music is emotion. You are telling a story with your violin, Thomas. The Polish Dance is a cheerful piece, it should invite people to have fun. If playing well, I am personally of the opinion that musicians can evoke as strong an emotion as Visitors can.”  
“I know Iris, but-“  
“Our audience is making you nervous?”  
She’d hit the nail right on the head. Thomas flushed and looked down at his sheet music, but after a terse moment he gave a short nod. 

Mrs Jefferson smiled. “In general, the audience doesn’t have a clue what the piece you are playing is supposed to be like. You know the notes and the rhythm, so play with confidence! If you keep your posture confident, even obvious mistakes won’t go noticed.” 

After Thomas had played the piece again (markedly more lively this time), packed his stuff and left, Mrs Jefferson turned her attention to us.  
“Thank you, for coming,” she said again. She walked over to her desk and picked up a small key rings from which two silver keys dangled, which she handed to Lockwood. “These are the keys to the front door and the storage room,” she explained, pointing to the door I had noticed earlier. “I must ask that you are careful in the storage room, there are several delicate instruments in there, and replacing them would cost a fortune…” 

“Of course, Mrs Jefferson,” Lockwood replied. He stuffed the keys into one of the pockets of his long coat.  
“Well, good luck then, I suppose…” Mrs Jefferson said. She tried to give us a smile, but it wasn’t quite convincing. She made her way to the door and with a final glance over her shoulder she left us alone. 

We waited patiently for her to be well and truly gone before getting to work. First, we lay out an iron circle in the open space between the piano and the desk and hauled our equipment inside it. Then we took a quick look in the storage room, but between the iron-lined door and the various silver-plated instruments on the shelves it was unlikely that a visitor would manifest there. Lockwood re-locked the door, and we focused our investigation on the main room. 

About half an hour later, we had finished our first round of measurements. We had been very thorough, but didn’t find anything out of the ordinary, except for a minor cold spot near the piano. The temperature difference was so minimal it may as well have been draughty spot. 

Lockwood and I sat down in the first row of chairs again. While cases like this weren’t difficult, they often involved a lot of waiting, and we both had our own ways to stave off the boredom and unease.  
Lockwood got out the newest issue of London Society and started flicking through the pages of the gossip magazine while I rifled through my kitbag for my sketchbook and a pencil. The little desktop connected to the chair was just large enough for me to draw comfortably, and soon I was doodling things I saw around the room. 

Time passed slowly, but eventually nightfall crept up on us. We had turned on the gas lantern and eaten some sandwiches, but besides another drop in temperature nothing in the atmosphere had really changed yet, so we went back to our own devices. I turned the page of my sketchbook and started sketching the piano. It was quite a challenge to draw it. In the light of our lantern, the lacquered wood shone, and its shape cast odd shadows. I found myself caught up in the challenge, but grew more and more frustrated. After multiple attempts to show the fall of the light in the outline I’d drawn, I had to admit to myself that I just couldn’t manage to capture the image. I was about to start another drawing when Lockwood suddenly sat up straight. 

“Do you feel it?” he asked. I didn’t need to ask what he meant. During our companionable silence, a heavy feeling had snuck up on me. It was pressing down on my chest as if trying to push away my positive emotions, and now that I was aware of it, I could hardly believe I had missed its presence.  
“Malaise,” I concluded, and Lockwood nodded in agreement. I used my inner ear to listen for psychic disturbances, but still came up short. “I don’t hear anything yet, are there any traces you can see?”  
“No…” Lockwood replied. “No Death-glows, no traces… Then again, George did say nobody died on campus.” 

We ran another round of measurements, with similar results as the first time. Nothing came up. Still, we were both on edge.  
“Let’s move into the circle Luce, I don’t want to be caught off guard,” Lockwood decided. He gathered the few pieces of our equipment we hadn’t placed inside the chains yet while I gathered my sketchbook and pencil from the chair before sitting down next to the lantern in our circle. 

For a while we waited, alert and ready to pull our rapiers if necessary, but ten minutes passed without change and we slowly relaxed. Lockwood pulled his thermos from his belt and poured tea into the cap. I reopened my sketchbook.  
“More measurements in half an hour?” I suggested as I leafed through my sketches until I found an empty page.  
“Sure,” Lockwood replied, before focussing on his magazine again. 

Deciding what to draw next didn’t take long; I had a fine subject sitting right in front of me. People are fun to draw although it’s also difficult because they don’t tend to stay still for long periods of time. Lockwood was usually full of energy and movement too, but if he felt like it, he could also sit still for ages. I had used him to practise my skills on more than once before I left to become a freelancer, and I was happy to have the opportunity to do it again. I glanced up to where he was sitting a few feet away from me, his back to the piano with his magazine opened in his lap and his cup of tea in hand, and started sketching. 

It had been some time since I came back with Lockwood and Co, but only now – sitting in a chain circle in a haunted studio with him – did I realise how much he had changed since I left the agency. I didn’t mean in character, although he had learnt to open up a bit more, but his physical appearance. His fashion style hadn’t changed, and he was still as slender as ever, all long limbs and expressive smiles, but in the time I was gone, his features had become a little sharper, more mature.  
He seemed to have grown into his height more. While he’d never been gangly or awkward, he now moved with a grace that had previously been reserved for rapier play. His face had lost some the boyish charm, replaced by a stronger jawline and more pronounced cheekbones. 

They were subtle changes, the kind that happen over months and in a way that probably went unnoticed to him and the people that saw him every day, until they looked back at old photos. If I hadn’t been gone for so long, I doubt I would have noticed them in the first place. Looking at him like that while I sketched, familiarising myself with the new nuances of his features, made me wonder if I had changed like that.

“Something wrong, Luce? You’re staring,” Lockwood said suddenly. My cheeks flared with heat at being caught staring at him like that and I lowered my gaze. I was ready to stammer out an apology when my eyes fell on my drawing. 

I had made a quick sketch of the piano to fill the background of the drawing (not nearly as detailed as my earlier attempt), and there was something off about it. Without a word I leafed back to the other drawing of the piano and looked back up. My suspicions were confirmed.  
“The haunting is starting,” I whispered, and offered Lockwood my sketchbook. He set down his tea and looked at my drawing before slowly turning around to see the real thing. 

It had been a while since we had looked around the room, counting on the change in atmosphere or psychic interference with the lantern to alert us to the start of the haunting, and therefore we had completely missed the way the lid of the grant piano had propped itself up into a half open position. 

As we watched, the piano bench slid backwards and the keyboard cover lifted, as if moved by an invisible hand. There was a beat of silence in which nothing seemed to happen at all, and I was reminded of the thought that had flitted through my mind when we first entered the studio. The silence had been anticipating then, and even more so now. It was like the silence that fell over an audience when the curtains were drawn. 

One of the white keys moved down on its own, and a single tone rang through the studio. 

“It’s a poltergeist,” Lockwood concluded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the second chapter is done! I'm afraid I can't promise when I publish the last chapter, but I do hope you enjoy this one in the mean time!


	3. Chapter 3

There is only one thing that all agents agree on without exception. Poltergeists are the worst possible Visitor to deal with on a job. Sure, they don’t have an ectoplasmic manifestation, which means you are safe from ghost touch when fighting one, but that’s just about the only advantage an agent has in a situation involving the kinetic type of Visitor. 

 

Because they don’t have a physical form, it is impossible to stick a sword into Poltergeists. Throwing flares at them does nothing, and you don’t have plasm wisps to determine a vanishing point with, which makes locating the source that more tedious. Not to mention that they are capable of interacting with their environment, more so than regular visitors. Their power can range from a small breeze that ruffles papers or -as I had found out the hard way last winter- a hurricane that could turn an entire department store on its head.

 

It felt like a hole opened in my stomach, and the panic welling up when I realised what we were dealing with threatened to push me right into it. Lockwood kept me from giving in by grabbing my hand and giving it a squeeze.

“Deep breaths, Lucy,” he whispered, keeping his voice low and calm, “It feeds off of our emotions. If we stay calm, so will the Visitor.”

I managed a nod and focussed on getting back in control of myself.

“Better?”

“Better,” I confirmed. It wouldn’t do to let my panic overwhelm me. We had a case to take care off.

 

Lockwood was squinting a little, which he always did when he used his talents, but after a moment he shook his head.

“Can’t see anything,” he said. “George’s theory about the Visitor being a brought-in source is probably right, there are still no Death Glows here.”

 

The Poltergeist hadn’t stopped while we took in the truth of the situation. It repeated the tone it played before a few more times, letting it sound for varying lengths of time. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes and listened. For a moment I couldn’t hear past the physical sounds of my surroundings, and I was about to give up again when psychic sound filtered through suddenly, as if somebody had turned up a radio. 

 

There was a soft feminine laugh in response to another woman’s voice, and another piano tone. This time though, a new, higher pitched tone sounded as well. It was sharper, for lack of a better description, and sounded bright and clear. At the same there was an echo to the sound that the piano didn’t have.

“In tune” the second woman said. The voice sounded far off and a little distorted as if I was listening to it through one end of a tin can telephone.   “Let’s begin”

 

I opened my eyes and tried to focus on my surroundings again. I turned to Lockwood, words to explain what I had heard already on my tongue, when the piano played a loud chord. A fraction of a second later the psychic tones joined in too, and a gentle melody started.

 

I know little about music. We rarely had a lot of free time, and when we did, we tended to spend it at home, training, reading or generally lazing around. I had never been to a concert before, let a lone a classical one. The only exposure to music I really had was the preppy pop songs that played on the radio in the kitchen. Still, I could recognise that our ghostly performer, (or performers) was a good musician. I could feel the calm atmosphere that belonged to the piece, the soft melancholy that rang through the clear tunes of what I assumed to be a flute.

 

A squeeze in my hand pulled me out of my cloudy state. Lockwood was looking at me with a worried expression on his face. His eyebrows were knitted together and his lips were pulled tight into a frown.

“Are you okay, Lucy?” he asked quietly. It wasn’t a good idea to raise your voice when dealing with a poltergeist; they were drawn to sound as much as to emotions. “You kind of… spaced out for a minute. Are you hearing something?”

“A performance, I think,” I whispered back. The piece still continued in my inner ear, and I struggled to push the music to the background of my focus. “There’s another instrument playing... You can’t hear it then?”

Lockwood shook his head and let go off my hand to reach into his work belt.

 

“I only hear the piano,” he said. He pulled out a small vial of lavender water, a fragrant liquid we sometimes used to deter visitors from coming close if we needed to operate outside of our chain circle. I had no idea whether it would work on a poltergeist, but it wouldn’t do any harm.

 

Lockwood dripped a small amount into his hand and spread it across his skin before offering me the vial.

“I want to do another round of measurements,” he whispered as I rubbed the lavender water onto my hands. The strong scent filled my nose, and I struggled not to sneeze. “We need to be careful with this one, just because it can’t Ghost touch us, doesn’t mean we are safe from its influence.”

 

We stepped out of the circle, clicked on a torch and started our measurements. The visitor forced us to stick close together, unable to raise our voices over the piano for fear of drawing the Poltergeist’s attention, so I was forced to whisper my observations into Lockwood’s ear. The forced proximity reminded me of the time we’d shared a single spirit cape during our track through the Other Side.

 

Lockwood had just written down the second temperature reading when the music shifted, rather abruptly. The calm mood of the piece died away, replaced by a more urgent tune. I felt a new unrest creep up on me with the crescendo of the flute, pushing its way through the malaise the Visitor was already spreading. Lockwood must have felt me stiffen because he grabbed my wrist and pulled me close.

“Something changed?” He asked quietly. I nodded and told him about the difference in the psychic music. “Yeah, I think I know what you mean, the sound of the piano changed too. Don’t think the threat of the Visitor has though, so let’s continue.”

 

When all the readings were done, we found that the overall temperature of the studio hadn’t dropped by much, but our breaths now plumed into white clouds in the cold spot near the piano. I took my glove off and turned to the instrument. The ghostly music had returned to its gentle melody again, which made it a lot easier to ignore. When I placed my fingers to the wood, it seemed to suck my body heat right out of me, and I pulled my hand back fast.

 

“Seems obvious what the source is,” Lockwood remarked when we stepped back into the circle. He went straight for the kitbag with our seals, opening it to choose a properly sized silver net.

“It does,” I agreed, glancing back at the grand piano. “Do you think one net will be enough, Lockwood? We don’t have a net large enough to cover the entire thing.”

He hesitated for a moment and then shook his head.

“Better not to take risks with this one,” he said while pulling out a second large net. 

 

I shook out the net so that it expanded to its full size as we walked towards the piano, trying not to wince at the soft jangle of the metal links. Lockwood took up a position near the keyboard, and I walked to the other end. We raised the nets simultaneously and Lockwood mouthed a countdown. In a moment of perfect cooperation we threw our nets across the piano, and as we finished draping the nets so they covered the majority of the instrument, the music stopped.

 

“Clear?” Lockwood asked out loud. The sound of his voice broke the tension that lingered, and a grin spread on my face.

“Yeah, the psychic sound is go-“ My sentence was cut off by a sudden displacement of air. I barely managed to pull my hands back in time to avoid the lid of the grand piano that slammed down, saving myself from a couple broken fingers. I did not manage to keep quiet. The surprise pulled a yelp from me, which was taken over by a psychic shout that tore through the studio. With that, the second part of the haunting set off.

 

I didn’t have time to contemplate how incredibly, foolishly wrong we had been about what the source was, because the poltergeist had turned its powers outwards now. The papers on the desk ruffled as if an invisible hand was leafing through them, and as I watched, one of the music stands toppled. It hung suspended at a 45-degree angle for a moment before crashing down to the linoleum in a deafening crash. Lockwood swore under his breath and quickly ducked around the piano, grabbing my wrist and dragging me toward our circle.

 

The distance between the piano and the circle wasn’t great, I estimate 10 feet, at the most. And yet it took us ages to cross because the poltergeist was doing everything in its power to work against us. It didn’t just chuck stuff around at random, but took deliberate aim. We were battered with pens, pencils, dry markers and the whiteboard erasers, and from the corner of my eyes I could see the thin booklets in the book cases tremble. I watched in disdain as they slowly slid forwards on their shelves one by one before falling off. None of them hit the floor, instead they were whisked up and whirled around us in an intimidating tornado of soft yellow paper, cutting us off from the rest of the room.

 

The surrounding air crackled with psychic energy, and I sensed items flying around beyond the wall of paper that cut us off from the room. Our torch was among them; I could see the circle of light move around the papers, whirling in an odd pattern that disoriented me completely.  The linoleum beneath my feet seemed to vibrate, and it threw me back into the memory of that _other_ poltergeist.

 

For a moment I thought the ground would open and swallow me again, and I froze. My world seemed to shrink until all I could sense was the rapid beating of my heart, and my stomach dropped as if to prepare for the fall I was sure would come next.

Instead of the floor disappearing from under me, a sudden impact forced me off my feet and I fell forwards through the paper hurricane.

 

Lockwood had tackled me just in time to avoid a metal object that was hurled at our heads by the poltergeist, and we fell onto the chains in a mess of limbs and paper cuts. Lockwood was back upright in an instant and pulled me into the circle fully by wrapping his arms around my torso.

 

Even when we were both safe in our circle, he didn’t let go off me. I could feel his chest rise and fall quickly against my back, and no doubt his heart was beating just as fast as mine was right then.  I kept quiet, deciding to enjoy the fact we weren’t dead for a moment.

 

Outside the circle, the poltergeist’s rage slowly petered out. As we watched, the sheet music fluttered down to the floor, covering the open space around our circle like a speckled rug. Another metal object – which I now recognised as a folded music stand – fell out of its trajectory and half heartedly rolled a few more inches before lying still.

 

“Lockwood, you can let go off me now,” I whispered.

“…Right, sorry.” Lockwood released his hold on me and took a quick step back. When I glanced up at him, he avoided my gaze. I was about to open my mouth to say something (what I didn’t know) but a loud tone from the piano ringing i through the room interrupted me. While we tried to regain our bearings, the poltergeist restarted its little concert.

 

“We’re out of our depth,” Lockwood reluctantly admitted, “obviously we were wrong about the piano, but I don’t know what else could be the source.”

“Me neither,” I said. “Perhaps we should go home and come back tomorrow to talk things over with Mrs Jefferson.” I cast a glance around the studio. “We’ve got quite a mess to explain to her too…”

 

Lockwood wasn’t happy about it, but he did agree with me. We silently started gathering our supplies, and when we had everything but the chains packed back up again, we tried to leave. The moment Lockwood stepped over the chains, the sheet music on the floor started rustling. The sound was loud and rhythmic, and mixed with the psychic music coming to a close again. It was hard not to flinch when pens lifted from beneath the papers, twirling around and floating in place in a threatening manner.

 

The piano finished and Lockwood took another step. The rustling grew louder; the pens rose a little further. We were caught in a stalemate. Any movement on our part resulted in a swell of the power of the poltergeist. We would never be able to reach the door without getting battered again. Lockwood stood still, looking back at me over his shoulder in the silence. The _expectant_ silence.

 

Feeling like an absolute fool, I shouldered my kitbag to free my hands and clapped. The sound was dry and weak, not at all like the thunderous applause a musician probably got after a concert, but the pens stopped twirling. “Applaud,” I hissed at Lockwood, who was watching me in confusion. “It gave a concert, it wants recognition.” Lockwood’s frown deepened, but slowly he brought his hands together too.

When he started clapping, the pens fell back to the floor, and the rustling stopped. I kept clapping as I stepped out of the circle and walked through the aisle between the rows of chairs that had been jumbled. Lockwood followed close behind, and we safely made it out of the studio.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After much thought, I decided to split up the last part of this story into two chapters. It was very hard to make one coherent chapter out of it, and in the end I gave up on it. This means that the final chapter will probably be a bit shorter, and I’m going to do my best to get it out as fast as possible. I’ve got a few days off of uni, so hopefully I’ll even manage to put it out this week.   
> Has anybody guessed what the source could be already?


	4. Chapter 4

We stood on the doorstep of the small studio early the following morning, a full hour before the school day would start. I stifled a yawn with the back of my hand; desperately wishing I was still in my warm bed back at Portland Row. Lockwood was doing little better. He was pale and didn’t speak much, instead staring out at the school grounds with a glazed look in his eyes.

 

After last night’s disaster, we’d gone home to recover.  We shared a quick meal of crisps and hot chocolate and then both gone up to our rooms. I’d taken a quick shower, crawled into my bed, and then lay awake for all three hours I had to sleep before we would need to get up again.

 

I was dead tired but each time I closed my eyes, scenes from the job flashed through my mind. The hurricane of papers, the flying music stand and the melody that accompanied the rampage of the poltergeist made it impossible to fall asleep, so the most I could do was lie still in bed with my eyes closed.

 

I don’t know whether Lockwood had manage to catch some sleep. Either way, he was not in a good mood right now. Our failure to locate and secure the source of what we had originally thought to be a low-level haunting was a blow to his pride. Add to that the fact it was a poltergeist – a type of Visitor that had brought us disaster before – and it made for a sour faced Lockwood.

 

He schooled his expression when Mrs Jefferson approached though. He conjured up his 50% smile (warm, polite but a little distant) and turned to intercept her.

“Good morning Mrs Jefferson,” he said. I gave a polite nod.

“Mr Lockwood, Miss Carlyle,” Mrs Jefferson greeted. Even though she had told George she always arrived at school at this hour, she seemed nervous to be out this early. She was bundled up warmly and seemed to want to hide in the wool cowl wrapped around her neck. She wore her hair braided back, and two large silver hair clips held back stray hairs.

 

“Did everything go well?” Mrs Jefferson asked, casting a worried glance at our faces. Both Lockwood and I had several small paper cuts littering our cheeks and forehead, Lockwood was pale and the bags beneath my eyes were so dark they looked like they’d been drawn on.

 

“Unfortunately not,” Lockwood started. His smile slipped a bit at the admission. “It seems we have a poltergeist on our hands, and it gave us quite some trouble.” He was trying to downplay our experience, but as a teacher Mrs Jefferson was skilled in seeing through evasiveness.

“What happened?” she demanded, her voice growing tight. “Are there damages? Please tell me none of the instruments are broken.”

“No, no, the instruments are fine, but-“ Lockwood took a deep breath. “I’m afraid it made quite a mess of your studio…”

 

Mrs Jefferson clenched her jaw as she unlocked the door to her studio, preparing for the worst. A gasp left her mouth as she entered and took in the chaos we’d left behind. She covered her mouth with her hand as she walked past the upturned chairs to the mess of sheet music surrounding the circle we’d abandoned last night.

With great care she stepped over the papers, trying not to tread on them, and made her way to the door of the storage room. The keys jangled in in her shaking hands as she unlocked it and looked inside. The iron lined door had done it’s job, there had been no psychic interference . Her shoulders sagged in relief, and when she turned around, the worst of her tension seemed to slide off of her. Still walking carefully, she made her way to her desk, picking up pens and pencils along the way and casually sliding them into a penholder, as if she found her studio in this ransacked state every other week. She unbuttoned her coat, hung it over the back of her chair, and turned to face us.

 

“So what exactly happened last night?” she asked. Lockwood launched into an explanation, but in my tired state, I had a hard time keeping focused at the conversation. Instead I found myself surveying the room again.

 

In the soft light of the morning, the damage seemed far less severe than it had last night. Sure the chairs were toppled and the sheet music had been dumped out on the floor, but except for the mirror –which had cracked in the upper left corner, the lines spreading out like a cobweb- nothing had been irreparably damaged. Hell, it hadn’t even been _all_ the sheet music that had been sucked into the tornado; the lower two shelves of the bookcases were still full.

 

“So you haven’t found the source then?” Mrs Jefferson asked. I glanced up at her, expecting anger or irritation. Instead her face showed reluctant resignation.

“We haven’t, I’m sorry,” Lockwood answered. “We’d like to try again tonight.”

Mrs Jefferson bit her lower lip, glancing away from Lockwood in deep thought. “I suppose I don’t have a choice,” she mused out loud. She cast a slow glance around the room. “This thing, this …poltergeist is clearly strong and dangerous. Even if we’re usually out well before curfew, I can’t risk my students’ safety.”

 

“Very wise,” Lockwood agreed. “We’ll take the chains and silver nets and come back tonight.” With big, careful steps he made his way across the sheet music, until he’d reached the circle. I followed him, tiptoeing over the booklets in an attempt to do as little damage possible. A flash of cold ran through me and was gone again.

 

“We’re sorry about the mess, Mrs Jefferson,” I offered the teacher watching us while we gathered our chains. She gave a weak, half-hearted smile. “I suppose it can’t be helped. Maybe I can make it into an exercise for my students, sorting through the sheet music to complete everything…”

“Most of the music is still together right?” Lockwood asked as he rolled up one length of chains.

“I’m afraid not, the booklets contain the accompaniments, the solo parts often fit on a few loose papers, and well…” Mrs Jefferson waved a hand in the direction of the paper carpet. “It’s going to be quite a task to find which solos belong to which piano accompaniments.”

 

Something in my mind clicked. I paused and surveyed the papers.

“Oh!” I exclaimed. “Of course, how did we not think of that?” Lockwood gave me a surprised look. “Think of what?” he asked.

“We were focused on the wrong thing!” I exclaimed. “We thought the source was the piano because that was the first thing the Visitor interacted with, but the piano was only the accompaniment!”

“What do you mean Luce?”

 

I struggled to put my thoughts into words. “Well, it gave us a concert, right? Wanted an applause and all that?” Lockwood nodded. “You heard the piano part, but I also heard the solo, I think. With my inner ear.”

“Where are you going with this?”

“What if it wasn’t the instruments that are important, but the music itself? The solo?”

 

Now Mrs Jefferson joined the conversation. “The visitor played a piece of music?” she asked. I gave a nod.

“It played the piano kinetically, but on a psychic level, I could hear the solo. It repeated it twice, and threw it’s fit in between. We focused on the piano, but I’m starting to think we should’ve put our money on the music instead…” I glanced at the sheet music. “Maybe… maybe the music was the source…”

“Do you know which piece it was?”

 

I shook my head.

“No, I don’t know much about music,” I confessed. “Lockwood, did you-“

“I only heard the piano Luce, haven’t got a clue.” Lockwood replied with a shrug before I even finished my question. “Besides, my musical education isn’t much better than yours.”

 

Mrs Jefferson looked at me. She had one arm wrapped around her chest and leant her other elbow on it as she rubbed her chin in thought.

“Do you think you could sing it?” she asked.

“It-it didn’t have lyrics,” I protested. “It was just a flute, I think.”

“Yes, but you heard the melody, do you think you could hum it for me? If you think the music might be the source, it stands to reason that you need to seal the sheet music – the text of the story, if you will – and I have a limited collection of flute solos…”

 

Feeling incredibly self-conscious, I concentrated on the memory of the music and started humming. I couldn’t reach the high tones or mimic the mood of the music, but Mrs Jefferson’s eyes stilled lit up in recognition after a few seconds. She snapped her fingers, the loud sound startling me.

“Dance of the Blessed Spirits!” she exclaimed, a smile growing on her face.

Lockwood raised an eyebrow. “Is that the name of the piece?” He asked, and Mrs Jefferson nodded. “It is, it is! It is a solo piece for flute and strings but often performed with piano accompaniment instead. Written for a 18thcentury opera if I recall correctly.”

 

She made her way to the half empty bookcases and scanned its remaining contents. “I bought a second-hand copy for one of my students last spring… No, not here…” She turned back to us. “It must be between the sheet music on the ground, do you mind?”

 

Lockwood and I exchanged a glance and then knelt down to help her look. About ten minutes past with us crawling around trying to find the right papers until Lockwood triumphantly held up a thin booklet with a worn grey cover. Two loose papers stuck out of it, and he nudged them back between the pages with his index finger.

I walked over to him and put a finger to the paper that had softened with age. A flash of cold shot through my arm immediately.

 

“Seems like this is might be it,” I said, taking the booklet from him and browsing through. It might as well have been written in Chinese for all that I understood the bars and black dots in it. What did catch my attention was the full title though.

“Minuet and Dance of the Blessed Spirits, from Orfeo ed Euridice?” I read out loud. 

 

“Ah yes. It is an opera about the myth of Orpheus written by Glück,” Mrs Jefferson said. “Do you know the story?”

I exchanged a glance with Lockwood. We had heard the story during our visit to the Orpheus Society when Penelope Fittes had offered a merger with the Fittes Agency.

 

“Yes, we do,” Lockwood said. “Orpheus was a skilled musician, was he not? Conquered death itself with his music when he tried to get his wife back from the underworld?”

“Well, I suppose that’s one way to explain the story,” Mrs Jefferson replied. “Although the focus in the Opera is a little different. It starts with Amore, the god of love telling Orfeo it’s possible to get her back from the underworld if he goes to get her, on the condition that he doesn’t look her in the eyes until they get back to earth.

 

“On his way down he runs into the furies who tell him to go back or they’ll sent Cerberus, the hound guarding the underworld after him. He begs them to let him through by singing a song about his longing for Euridice, and when they let him through, finds his wife in the most beautiful part of the underworld. Dance of the Blessed Spirits plays during that scene.”

 

I looked down at the sheet music and recalled the melody I heard last night. The first part certainly did sound like something I could match to and idyllic afterlife, but the second part not so much.

“It’s- it didn’t sound just happy, though,” I remarked. Mrs Jefferson’s braid swung from side to side as she shook her head. “It isn’t,” she confirmed. “The Furies’ warning rings through clearly, and when Orfeo leads Euridice out of the underworld, he doesn’t turn to her. Euridice doubts his love for her and refuses to make another step until he looks at her. And when he does, she’s trapped in the underworld forever.”

 

Her smile was melancholic as she bent down to gather another set of sheet music. “Here the opera diverts from the myth. Orfeo decides to kill himself to join Euridice in the underworld, but before he can, Amore rewards him for his continued love for Euridice by returning her to life. In the opera the moral is that love conquers all.” 

 

“And in the myth?” Lockwood asked hesitantly.

“There are multiple versions,” Mrs Jefferson answered. “In some he does take his life and join her, in others he lives a lonely life until his time has come and he’s reunited with his wife. In the end the myth teaches that mere mortals cannot break the rules of life and death so easily.”

Just for the record, the sheet music of Dance of the Blessed Spirits  _was_ the source of the Poltergeist haunting the studio. As promised we came back to the studio (helpfully cleaned up by Mrs Jefferson’s students) that evening, just to be sure we hadn’t missed anything. We set up our equipment, took measurements and waited for the haunting to start. But with the sheet music of the opera piece safely wrapped up in a silver net, there wasn’t so much as a temperature change. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whelp, I seem to be unable to keep the promises I make myself, and this final chapter got away from me. I hope the length makes up for the fact that it took longer to put out!


End file.
